Statement: A better politics is possible

Like many Australians, we followed this week's midterm elections in the United States with more than a passing interest. It is not our contest, but the message American voters sent carries well beyond their borders.

Two things in the result stand out to us.

The first is the verdict on how politics has been conducted. Voters were asked to endorse the combative, divisive style that has dominated public life in recent years, that has pushed international affairs toward turmoil, and that has begun to be imported into our own debates here in Australia. They turned away from it, in numbers that were hard to miss. For anyone who believes politics can be done with respect for the other side of the argument, that is an encouraging sign - in the United States, and here.

The second is what moved those voters. By every account it was the cost of living - fuel, groceries, housing, the weekly strain on ordinary households - and a sense that those in office were attending to their own priorities while that strain grew. That sentiment is not unique to America. We hear it on doorsteps across Sturt, and it is much of the reason this project exists: to put a representative in parliament whose agenda is set by this community, rather than handed down to it.

We don't read the result as a win for one side of politics over another. We read it as a reminder that voters everywhere, when they have had enough, are entirely capable of choosing something better - and that the way to earn their trust is to listen to them, take their concerns seriously, and conduct politics like adults.

That is what we are trying to build here.